“I love mystery stories and so, decades ago, I wrote one. My agent told me that the book would make rich if only I changed a little bit. … So I rewrote it. And rewrote it. And still I try occasionally to make that story work. Reading a great mystery can make it seem so easy to write one, and the process of writing can be a fine adventure. But the only thing that’s easy is getting lost—and the lack of resolution remains frustrating.”